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Jaqui's Daily Blog

Living Dangerously and the Contents of My Fridge

Everyone should try living dangerously from time to time.

So that’s what I did today.

Well, OK, this is me we are talking about. I didn’t jump out of a helicopter, or off a high bridge on the end of a piece of elastic, or take to looping the loop in the skies. That
would, indeed, be loopy, in my opinion. What I did do was to wash my trainers in the washing machine.

The thing is, I still don’t know if they
are actually washable. There is no label on them that I can see which says they are. But then again there is no label on them which says they are not. All I can say for certain is that, after being worn every other day throughout the summer, on beaches, muddy
paths, grassy parks and soggy pavements, they look scruffy in the extreme. I bought them back in June for our Austrian holiday and now, with another holiday looming large, it would be good to see them back their pristine best. So I crossed
my fingers and stuffed them into the washing machine in the company of several towels to deaden the sound of rubber soles on the drum. You see what I mean about living dangerously.

I couldn’t bear to hang around, waiting and wondering for the wash cycle to finish, so Mr B and I headed off into town and the local cinema to see “About Time”, a film which came highly recommended by (i) my brother in law; (ii) Christopher
Tookey in the Daily Mail whose reviews Mr B always takes as gospel; and (ii) my friend Paula. It is true that the latter confesses to a massive crush on Bill Nighy which means that her critical faculties for summing up any film in which he appears are
somewhat compromised.

I won’t tell you all about the film, in case you decide to go and see it for yourself, but basically it’s about a chap who can
travel back in time. If my trainers emerge from the washing machine all shrunken up, I shall wish that I, too, could travel in time.

I would probably have felt
the same way, had I been one of the contestants in the latest series of Masterchef Australia. Six of them were facing elimination from the competition. You could tell because they were all wearing black aprons instead of the usual bright blue and red
ones. How very theatrical, how very dramatic. To make the contestants feel a little less stressed by their prospects of elimination, the Powers That Be had transported into the Masterchef Kitchen something very special to each of them. Something
to bring them comfort, a touch of home. Their own refrigerators, brought directly from their kitchens, right down to the fridge magnets adorning their doors. Their task was to cook a meal which was special to them, using the familiar ingredients from their
own fridges.

OMG, as the Middle Grand-Daughter, Hazel Bagel would say. This would be the stuff of my Worst Nightmare. Here is what I would have had to cook
with: (i) a carton of skimmed milk; (ii) a carton of semi-skimmed milk; (iii) two eggs; (iv) a jar of marmalade; (v) a jar of home-made (but not by me) runner bean chutney; (vi) a half empty tube of tomato puree; (vii) a tin of tuna chunks in brine;
(viii) a can of Diet Coke and (ix) a carton of orange juice approaching its sell-by date. My fridge is not what you would call well-stocked. Can you imagine how embarrassing it would have been, had I been one of the Black Aproned Ones and had had
to discuss the contents of my fridge with the Masterchef judges. I would certainly have wished myself back in time, shopping for England (or, I suppose in this case, Australia) all the better to Fill My Fridge With Wholesome Produce.

The trainers? I am currently drying them out on the table in the garden. They haven’t fallen to pieces which is a good sign but they do look a little bit bent which may be a bad sign.

Should I be thinking myself back to this morning, before I started to live dangerously?